Mikovits Saga Continues - Lawsuit Dismissed - Retraction Watch Reports

Cort

Founder of Health Rising and Phoenix Rising
Staff member
The saga goes on....:bag:

Dr. Mikovits apparently filed suit against the WPI in 2014 but failed to serve the defendants within 120 days - so the lawsuit is being dismissed. (If you can't physically serve someone - I was told you can simply print the service in a local newspaper...)

Retraction Watch dug a lot of material out of Mikovit's lawsuit.

Mikovits charged that Vincent Lombardi was using federally-funded research materials for use in research for a for-profit entity owned by the Whittemores, VIPDx.. (Since the WPI was apparently investigated and vetting by an NIH team - and allowed to keep their grants - my guess is that the lawsuit would have failed. )

At the time of her arrest Dr. Mikovits also said she was going to take down Dr. Peterson for medicare fraud I believe it was.

The big new news for me was that the Whittemore's apparently won a big judgement against her ($5.5 million) after she took the notebooks and laboratory materials which she stated bankrupted her. (She is apparently living in nice beach community in San Diego, though!)


Judy Mikovits


A case filed by chronic fatigue syndrome researcher Judy Mikovits — and about to be dismissed on technical grounds — reveals that Mikovits believes her firing from a research institute was in retaliation for blowing the whistle on activities there.

The suit — which we’ve made available here — was originally filed in November 2014 but is scheduled to be dismissed next week because Mikovits failed to serve the defendant within 120 days, as required under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. In it, Mikovits seeks:

According to the complaint, sometime in 2011, Mikovits discovered that one of her colleagues, co-author Vincent Lombardi (no, not that one),
had been using federally-funded research materials for use in research for a for-profit entity owned by the Whittemores, VIPDx​

Mikovits told Lombardi and the Whittemores about the “perceived misappropriation,” and asked him to stop. She also wrote a paper — apparently this one — saying that VIPDx’s product “was based on contaminated research.”

On September 29, 2011, Mikovits was fired from her post as research director of WPI. She would eventually spend several days in jail for being a “fugitive from justice” after the Whittemores filed a civil suit saying she had stolen lab notebooks. Mikovits, however, said the suit was
intended to retaliate against Mikovits because of her role in furthering a potential qui tam proceeding, and seeking to stop perceived fraud against the government.​
Mikovits, according to the complaint, said she could not turn over the notebooks “because of concerns for the safety of patient data,” and lost her case. A judgment against her of $5.5 million bankrupted her, according to the complaint. (For more background on qui tam cases, click here.)
 

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